OrgansWhen you live under a collectivist system you can expect a number of things to hit you during your life: increasing taxes, “national insurance,” rates, and a general increasing government infringement on the freedoms of the individual. In short: More tax. More regulation. More control. Until you find the sweet release of death. And even that isn’t so sweet.

It now looks possible that some time in the not too distant future (with the backing of Gordon Brown, our Glorious Leader) our internal organs will be fair game for government. Seemingly railways and banks in trouble aren’t the only targets of nationalisation for our left-leaning friends. Our dead bodies could soon become public property, and as you feel the first twinge go up your arm and collapse with a heart attack they’ll surround you like vultures to see what they can pick off and rip out.

All for the greater good of course.

Hyperbole, to some extent, I hope. But there is a genuine worry about a move to “presumed consent” in the matter of organ donation as an inquiry into the matter by the “Organ Donor Taskforce” gets underway. Government ministers are already speaking out in favour of it. We’re being told that “1000 lives a year will be saved” and “medical costs will be reduced.” What presumed consent amounts to is that when you die, if you have not opted out, your organs will be fair game (so long as you didn’t die in a plane crash, leaving them pulped and good for nothing but dog food and Chinese chop suey). Junior health minister Ben Bradshaw argues: “Given that 1000 people in this country die every year waiting for organs, and we have a relatively low level of donation, anything we can do to get those numbers up must be right” [emphasis mine].

Classic utilitarian logic lies behind every word of that statement: if more people benefit than are harmed then it must be right. Nothing wrong with that, is there? Well, taken to its logical conclusion we arrive at a position which is justified but surely abhorrent even to those who subscribe to the retarded ethics of utilitarianism. The same utilitarian logic would also justify us taking a living person and stripping them of their vital organs if by doing so we could save more lives than we take. This measure would also reduce the number of deaths while increasing the levels of donation. Must it be right? It isn’t the policy that’s perverted: it’s the system of ethics underneath that is, and if, as my counter-example shows, the logic is faulty in one case it is faulty in the other – since it’s exactly the same.

The quote is also classic statism (a close cousin of utilitarianism). It implies that the government has rights over the individual which allows it to interfere as long as there is a benefit to “society” or “the collective.” It ignore the basic truth that our bodies belong, duh!, to us. My body is not the property of the state; I own me and when I die it’s up to my next of kin what happens to me. I couldn’t care less what happens to my body at death. I have no funeral service plans because it’s really up to my family and friends how they wish to “see me off.” I’ll be dead and either playing my harp in heaven or listening to rap music in Hell – either way my body is no further concern of mine. The same goes for organ donation: I don’t want to opt-in or opt-out, I want my family to decide. If I die and they really can’t bear to have my body cut to bits and flown around the country then that’s a matter for them. Alternatively, if they don’t mind then they can do what they wish with my body. Again, I’ll be dead and not knowing or caring too much about it. If they use my skull as a drum, my bladder as a football, my stomach as a bin bag, and my bollocks as ping pong balls I won’t be in a position to give a stuff. Other people will have a preference, and it doesn’t matter what wild and wacky reason people give for opposing transplants they shouldn’t have to risk being goaded into it.

Of course, proponents of the measure will be screaming the words “opt out!” at their computer screens. But, in my case I don’t want to opt in or out as I’ve explained. And it seems highly likely that some people opposed to transplants will fail to opt out for one reason or another: perhaps they forgot about it, didn’t think much about it, weren’t aware of it, misunderstood it, or were on their way to the Opt-out Office when they got hit by a number 11 bus. Opting in remains a far safer system and for this reason I agree very much with Joyce Robins of Patient Concern when she says: “we are totally opposed to this. They call it presumed consent, but it is no consent at all.” How true, and in addition to such considerations we must remember how utilitarian logic can suddenly warp seemingly benign policies into monstrous ones. I don’t normally like slippery slope arguments (many being based on nothing but paranoia and scare-mongering) but they are valid in this case because the logic of the top of the slope is identical to that at the bottom, making a slide inevitable in the absence of a different, more rational, paradigm for thinking about such matters.

You can also bet your ass that opting out won’t be made easy either. Our current government has turned bureaucracy into an art form. You can expect it to involve lots of time, money, letters, stamps, visits from medical personnel, and phone calls to government departments (where of course you’ll be transferred a gazillion times before being cut off). But of course by making it difficult to opt out more organ donors will be available and more lives will be saved, so therefore it “must be right”, right?

Surely the British public won’t stand for it!? Well, a BBC poll carried out in 2005 revealed that 61% of the public supported the idea of presumed consent. This figure strikes me as odd, not only because so many Britons are happy with such government intrusion and control and buy into the idea that governments should have such a right over our lives and bodies, but because it doesn’t fit well with another statistic: that only 20% of the population is on the organ donor register. If my maths is correct, and if these statistics are at all accurate, we get this rather absurd situation:

Britain has an adult population (16 and over) of around 50 million (give or take a few 100,000 immigration officials can’t account for). So, around 30 million are in favour of presumed consent. Now, lets assume that all those on the register are in favour of presumed consent: that gives us a figure of 10 million in favour of presumed consent and also on the organ donor register. Which means that 20 million people think this is a good policy but don’t actually freely volunteer their own bloody organs! It’s like those socialists who believe so firmly in government aid for the poor but who don’t actually volunteer their own money. Instead they advocate increased taxation and redistribution of everyone’s wealth to support those causes they can’t bring themselves to support voluntarily. The fact of the matter is that if these 20 million people voluntarily put themselves on the organ donor register there would be no need for this discussion at all for there would be so many organs we might even be able to have some left over for soups, stews and burgers. It never ceases to amaze me how so many people think “the government should do this or that” but for whom the penny never drops that they could voluntarily do this and that (give to the poor, assist the unemployed, support the arts, or donate organs) without trying to force the rest of us to do so too. Frankly they’re disgusting. Such types would happily see our freedoms frittered away on the back of their own hypocrisy and see the increase of government power to satisfy their own sense of self-righteousness.

The current system works, and can be easily expanded. In many cases all medical staff need to do is heed the words of Mr Christ: “Ask and it will be given to you,” and they should find a dramatic increase in the number of donations rather than wait for an offer from grieving relatives with other things on their mind.

It might also be worth thinking about the rights of people to have their organs sold after their death. This could potentially attract a high number of donors and thus save more lives. At the minute 1000 people die each year and every one of them is denied the right to purchase organs to save their life. Many more donors could be signed-up if their families got a cash sum for their organs: which might allow a poor family to give a deceased relative the funeral they wish to. The family get needed cash and the dying person gets the organ they need to survive. Win-win. It seems rather odd that the government would block a person from saving their own life: the worst form of denial of the right to life. In fact, it is possible to be an organ donor without being dead – you can function just as well on one kidney as with two (unless it packs up of course, that’s the risk!). To object to a free market in organs is to deny people the right to make their own judgments about their life and their bodies. Government should not interfere.

It might be objected that this solution would benefit those who can afford it rather than those who most desperately need it. This is true, but being in great need is not sufficient to deny other people their right to life (by forbidding them to support and save their own life through the purchase or sale of an organ). Those who can afford to buy organs do not harm those who cannot afford it. In fact, poorer people would do better too since an increase in organs would lead to a reduction in price, but also charities they relied on would find it much easier to get organs for them.

Here’s the issue: you are dying and need a kidney. Would you not want to buy one to save your life? And if you found a seller why shouldn’t you have the right to purchase the kidney from them? The issue hinges on the right to life: if we truly have a right to life then there should be a free market in organs. How many of those 1000 people could be saved if organ selling was allowed?

Unfortunately this contradicts the morality of self-sacrifice that is bred into people from the cradle. This morality is what prevents a free market in organs, with the diktat that they must be freely given (which no doubt many still would be under a free market system). The result is a shortfall in organs and needless deaths every year. An ethic of rational self-interest would increase organ availability and save lives. More importantly it would reinforce the central notion that we own our bodies, and our lives do not belong to the state:

My brain, my bladder, my bollocks!

Stephen.